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Turning east, they were soon in a boulder field on the 20 degree slope at the base of the North Massif, their objective another giant rock with its trail down the mountainside where its origins could be traced to the upper levels. The rock was the largest yet visited, but could be seen to have split into several pieces where it had come to rest. Schmitt went to sample it while Cernan attended to the gravimeter.
[Scott - "We made a plaque for all the astronauts and cosmonauts that had been killed. And a little figurine, a Fallen Astronaut, and we put it right by the Rover. You can see it in the picture (AS15-88-11893). That was just a little memorial, in alphabetical order. In relative terms, we had both lost a lot and, interestingly enough, we didn't lose any more after that until Challenger. That's what I was doing when I said I was cleaning up behind the Rover (at 167:43:36). Jim knew what I was doing. We just thought we'd recognize the guys that made the ultimate contribution."]
[Journal Contributor Danny Caes notes that the "Fallen Astronaut" figurine was the work of Belgian artist Paul van Hoeydonck]
[In a 2000 exchange of e-mail, Dave Scott adds "As I recall, we had the idea for the memorial and then looked around for the manner in which it might best be realized. The plaque was the obvious baseline. And either Al or Jim found van Hoeydonck. I remember meeting him at least once."]
Thus, the fact that the rotational period of the Moon and the orbital period of the Earth-Moon system are of the same length is not an accident. Presumably this was not always true, but over billions of years the tidal coupling of the Earth and the Moon has led to this synchronization. In the case of the Earth-Moon system the synchronization is not yet complete. The Earth is slowly decreasing its rotational period and eventually the Earth and Moon will have exactly the same rotational period, and these will also exactly equal the orbital period. At the same time, the separation between the Earth and Moon will slowly increase in just such a way as to conserve angular momentum for the entire system.
Thus, billions of years from now the Earth will always keep the same face turned toward the Moon, just as the Moon already always keeps the same face turned toward the Earth. We will encounter other examples of such tidal locking in other pairs of objects in the Solar System.
Originally posted by Imagir
What is this strange piece of metal?
Originally posted by zorgon
Originally posted by Imagir
What is this strange piece of metal?
It's a message to the Moon People...
"This is now our turf, We'll be Back!"
Originally posted by Imagir
What is really strange and indeed incredible it is the path of the Purple rock.
Its starting point is a pit.
It exits from the pit and climb the depression in order then to slip towards the low.
Some law of the physical does not work on the Moon…